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Island/Summary
Childhood The Proving Ground It is 1 month since a nuclear accident sickened Japanese fishermen and forced the evacuation of three islands in the Pacific. With the assistance of conspirators inside the Atomic Energy Commission's weapons testing program, Carl Benneton, his wife Alicia, their adopted children Maya and Mikado, and Alicia's cousin Robert Atwater sail a yacht into the Pacific Proving Ground, intending to stage a protest and force an end to the atmospheric testing of the hydrogen bomb. Things go wrong, and the yacht is incinerated in a nuclear blast. California lawyer Jonathan Studeman has just returned from Japan, where he observed the sick and dying fishermen. There he was given – and he delivers – a personal letter to Vice President Richard Nixon. From Nixon, the president learns that an unidentified Army general has been warning Senator Joe McCarthy about a plot to infiltrate the Pacific Proving Ground. When news of the yacht arrives, President Eisenhower orders Studeman to investigate the conspiracy and find a way to avoid publicity and protect the testing program. Meanwhile, in a stunt intended to win adulation, Russell Weyland, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, is humiliated by the pastor of a church that his son had once attended in Indianapolis. The pastor is Jim Jones. The newest members of the church are Peter Hansen, an ex-Marine, and his pregnant Japanese bride, Kimiko. After publicly humiliating Weyland by inviting him to address a congregation that he did not know was predominately black, Jones pretends to cure Kimiko of a "brain tumor" falsely diagnosed by a doctor friend. Crossroads At the Proving Ground in the Marshall Islands, Studeman discovers that one of the conspirators is a young Navy RADAR operator, Russell Weyland, Jr., son of the infamous Ku Klux Klan member from Indianapolis. From Russell, he learns that the family staged from a campsite on Yelbatin, an uninhabited island 60 miles northeast of Bikini Atoll. There, Studeman finds the dead bodies of Alicia and Maya Benneton, victims of suicide, and the boy, Mikado, still alive. The three were left behind, stranded, with no hope of survival, when the yacht sailed to Bikini and was destroyed. Mikado is of mixed blood, Amerasian. Studeman realizes that Alicia was the woman who gave him the letter, a month ago in Japan. Russell Weyland is found hanged in his cell on Kwajalein, apparently another suicide. With no clue to the identity of other conspirators, Studeman returns to Washington to learn the contents of the letter. He leaves the boy in the care of his best friend, psychiatrist Dr. Isaac Levanthal. The letter is a warning and a plea for an end to weapons testing. It does not name the inside conspirators, but does mention Robert Atwater as a man whose life Nixon had once saved. Nixon says that he had not read the letter, and he claims not to know anyone named Atwater. In an angry confrontation, Nixon fires Studeman, and demands he return the letter. Studeman refuses, and says the letter will be in the report he gives to Eisenhower. In the Marshall Islands, we learn the identities of the four surviving anti-nuclear conspirators when their leader, Dr. Isaac Levanthal, places a call to a German man living in Hawaii. The call is being monitored by fellow conspirator, Navy Lieutenant Commander Bryan O'Connor. Levanthal warns the German that he, Levanthal, may be arrested, because the boy, Mikado, recognizes him and will soon be well enough to talk. The German, Hans-Heinric Krueger, also had a close relationship with the Bennetons. Levanthal and Krueger agree that Levanthal will have to get rid of the boy. Hearing this conversation, O'Connor believes, as Krueger does, that Levanthal intends murder. O'Connor races to the isolation ward of the hospital, where Mikado was being kept hidden. He finds that Levanthal has put the dead girl Maya's body in Mikado's bed, and is now carrying Mikado away. Thinking Levanthal insane, O'Connor confronts him and learns that the doctor has a plan. With help from O'Connor and the fourth conspirator, a Russian-born FBI interrogator-translator named Natalia Lysenko, who is in love with Levanthal, they can use the Navy's desire to protect the testing program to their advantage. They will tell Jonathan Studeman that the boy has died, and they will arrange for bodies to be buried on Yelbatin, and for the disappearance of the Bennetons to be reported as a family lost at sea, somewhere far from the Marshall Islands. Meanwhile, in Hawaii, Hans-Heinric Krueger reports the death of the Benneton family to Army General Edwin Walker. In a flashback to the closing days of World War II, we learn that Krueger was a mining engineer at the tunnels of Mittelwerk, and a Nazi war criminal. Surrendering to the Americans at war's end, he struck up a friendship with the youthful Walker, who advised him to "tell everyone you're a communist," and he was brought to America in the company German rocket scientists. Now, Krueger has been spying for Walker, feeding him information about the conspiracy to infiltrate the Proving Ground. Walker, whom Krueger admires as "the next Fuhrer, America's own," tells Krueger to back off. It is now too dangerous. A week later, Bryan O'Connor arrives at the home of Russell Weyland in Indianapolis, and tells him that his dead son, Russell, Jr., was implicated in a conspiracy before taking his own life, and that he had a child whose mother must have been Korean. Weyland, a rabid bigot and segregationist, refuses to accept custody, and angrily tells Bryan to "give the little bastard" to the Jones church. Isaac Levanthal and Natalia Lysenko, together, take Mikado Benneton to Jim Jones and tell the same story. Jones suggests that Mikado be adopted by Peter and Kimiko Hansen. We learn that Kimiko grew up in Moscow. She is the very beautiful daughter of a Japanese diplomat who was executed in Japan at the end of World War II for being a communist. Ostracized and impoverished, she was forced to leave a sister behind in Japan, working in the clubs, when she married Peter and came to America. Kimiko and Natalia are able to converse in Russian. Translating, Natalia helps to persuade Kimiko to accept the child, along with financial support from Levanthal, who is quite wealthy. Mikado, understanding nothing and seeing a baby girl in Kimiko's arms, happens to utter the name of his dead sister, "Maya." To this, Kimiko replies, "I like that name." Little Rock Three years later, Isaac Levanthal is Chief of Psychiatry at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. Federal troops under the command of Major General Edwin Walker are enforcing the court-ordered integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Walker has sent letters to President Eisenhower complaining that the assignment is contrary to his personal beliefs. Levanthal is asked by the Prison Bureau Director to evaluate Walker's mental stability. In Little Rock, Walker refuses to meet with Levanthal, and tells him, "I know all about you, Doctor. You'd better watch your back." Shortly thereafter, Levanthal is accosted by Hans Krueger, who demands to know why he has spoken to the general, and threatens to expose him as a murderer. When Levanthal reveals that the boy, Mikado, is still alive, Krueger panics and demands to know where the boy is. Clearly the boy must know something about Krueger that even Levanthal never knew. Suspicious, Levanthal asks FBI agent Natalia Lysenko to dig deeper into Krueger's past. Levanthal has been subjecting the boy to psychiatric treatment to erase his memory of Hawaii, a process that he may now have to reverse if he is to learn what the boy knows. A month later, the Jones Church is firebombed at night, while children are sleeping there. One of the children is Mikado Benneton, now named Hideo Hansen. Hideo is badly burned but survives, and tells Levanthal he wants to change his name again, to Hideo Shin in honor of his decreased natural mother, Shin Jung-hwa, who speaks to him in dreams. Levanthal suspects that the bomber was Hans Krueger, but the police and FBI have identified Russell Weyland from fingerprints and a letter found at the church. Weyland is now a fugitive. At the hospital where Hideo is recovering, Levanthal receives a phone call from Edwin Walker, crudely disguising his voice, who claims to know where Levanthal can find the bomber before the police do. Levanthal, with the help of his co-conspirators Bryan O'Connor and Natalia Lysenko, captures Hans Krueger and brings him to the basement of the Medical Center's Psychiatric Ward, where they torture him and extract a confession. Not only is he a Nazi war criminal whose whereabouts were unknown to anyone but Edwin Walker, but he is also a sadistic pedophile who had abused the boy, Mikado. They confirm that Russell Weyland firebombed the church with bombs built by Krueger, one of which was purposely set not to go off, so as to leave evidence implicating Weyland. The three interrogators agree to dispose of Krueger, and are not worried about Weyland since he knows nothing about them. But unknown to the conspirators, Weyland himself was hiding in the truck of the car, behind a false rear seat, when they had stopped and captured Krueger. Levanthal, Lysenko and O'Conner take Krueger to a highway construction site. They dig a trench, throw Krueger in, execute him with his own gun, and bury him. But on the way out, they notice an empty vehicle parked at the entrance. Lysenko inspects it, and is shocked to discover that it is Krueger's own car. Adolescence Washington Three years later, in 1960, Richard Nixon is running for president against Senator John F. Kennedy. President Eisenhower wants to appoint Jonathan Studeman as Attorney General in a new "shadow government," a part of the Continuity of Government (COG) program that will ensure government survives in the event of a nuclear war. Isaac Levanthal, who is a designer of the program and also Psychiatric Director for the Bureau of Prisons, has learned from Nixon's advisers that Jonathan Studeman is in Washington D.C., where he met with Kennedy's campaign manager and gave him a copy of the Benneton letter. Levanthal visits Studeman at his hotel to convey the appointment by Eisenhower and learns that Studeman retained and has the original letter with him, hidden in the room. He tells Studeman that he should return the letter to Nixon. Studeman refuses, citing distrust of Nixon, who had removed a copy of the letter that was in Studeman's report to Eisenhower. Also in the room are a pair of hamsters in a cage, which Studeman says are a gift from a builder who has designed a complex to be constructed at the water gate of the B&O Canal on the Potomac River. With Levanthal, Studeman visits Mt. Weather, the massive, fortified nuclear bunker under construction nearby in Virginia. There he is briefed on details of the COG program. In the event of a crisis that puts the U.S. on the brink of war with the Soviet Union, members of the shadow government will be sheltered at unfortified but highly secret locations. Reserves of gold bullion will be transported from Ft. Knox and stored in vaults at one of these shelters. When he returns to his hotel, Studeman discovers that the hamster cage has been opened and its paper lining removed. The room has been searched, probably by someone trying to find the Benneton letter. Studeman's personal assistant, Angela Jean Butler, calls to tell Studeman that she has broken off her engagement to a mutual friend, Jim. Angela is the first black female attending Studeman's alma mater, Loyola Law. Jim is white, and they had argued over what to do about the prejudice Angela was encountering. Studeman tells Angela that he will help, and that he has bought her an engagement gift, a pendant. The gift is in a decorative box that bears the inscription, "The Mind of a Man, a Mystery to Men, Opens Not But from Within." Senator Kennedy has seen the Benneton letter and knows that the accident at the Proving Ground was covered up by the Eisenhower Administration, but he is unable to use such information against Nixon. However, his campaign manager, Larry O'Brien, has discovered from a source at the CIA that the Benneton cousin Robert Atwater once worked for the CIA and spent months in a Cuban prison during the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. O'Brien has also learned that the CIA is currently recruiting, equipping and training expatriate Cubans in Florida for an invasion of the island. The boy Hideo Hansen (formerly Mikado Benneton) is now a teenager, and he and his adoptive father Peter still attend the church of Jim Jones in Indianapolis. Hideo has written a letter demanding that Jones reform the church, which Hideo now knows is a coercive cult engaged in bizarre, abusive rituals. Infuriated, Jones assaults Kimiko, whom he and Peter blame for corrupting the boy. Hideo intervenes and is nearly killed when Jones strikes him with a meat cleaver. Kimiko is drugged and left at the hospital parking lot, where she awakes and encounters police who believe she had been out drinking when the boy attacked his father and was injured in self-defense. Isaac Levanthal tells Kimiko that to have any hope of being believed, she must now file for divorce, even though she is terrified that she will lose her daughter, Maya, when she does. Edwin Walker has been arrested for speaking at an anti-integration rally in Oxford, Mississippi, and inciting the crowd to assault Federal marshals. Fearing that a Grand Jury in Mississippi will never return an indictment, Attorney General Robert Kennedy asks the Prison Bureau's Psychiatric Director to write a letter to the judge recommending and requesting a psychiatric evaluation of Walker. Levanthal is skeptical, but agrees when Kennedy tells him that Walker has accused Levanthal and others of being members of the Communist Party. Levanthal confronts Walker at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners and warns him not to shoot his mouth off about communists. Walker says he knows what happened to Hans Krueger, and he will tell all if he is not released immediately. Levanthal reminds Walker that doing so would expose Walker's own relationship with the murdered Nazi war criminal. Walker is about to be released anyway, since the Grand Jury has not indicted him, and the judge has said he must be examined by his own doctor. Levanthal calls Natalia Lysenko at the FBI and tells her that he has decided they must deal with Walker "her way." They will kill Walker using a communist patsy that Natalia has recruited in Walker's hometown, Dallas, Texas. Natalia tells Levanthal that the patsy believes that the Russian-born Natalia works for the Soviet KGB, which Levanthal finds quite humorous and "ironic." Natalia then informs Levanthal that the patsy also happens to be an ex-Marine who was once stationed in Japan, and that for a while he dated the sister of Kimiko Hansen. Prior to the final presidential debate, JFK issues a public statement saying that the U.S. should help Cuban exiles to overthrow the Castro regime. This forces Nixon to take the opposite position and lie during the debate, for fear of exposing that the administration is already secretly training expatriates for an invasion at the Bay of Pigs. This ploy by Kennedy helps him win a narrow victory in the election. Two years later the U.S. is on the verge of nuclear war over missiles deployed to Cuba by the Soviet Union. Jonathan Studeman reports, as instructed, to the San Diego Naval Base for transport to a shelter. He boards Seawolf, a nuclear powered submarine, and learns from the captain that they are bound for a secret location carrying 89 Marines and an unknown cargo, which Studeman correctly surmises to be gold bullion hidden in crates. Arriving a week later, Studeman is surprised to find Isaac Levanthal already at the shelter. Levanthal takes him on a tour, proudly boasting of his greatest achievement. The shelter is underground on Elvaton Island. On the surface is the Benneton-Atwater Radiologic Research Center, now a kind of Potemkin village. A concrete dome is the containment structure for a nuclear reactor that powers the secret underground facility and its water desalination plant. The cover story is that the dome encloses radioactive waste from the weapons testing program. Near a beach is a grave site that Levanthal says contains the bodies of Alicia, Maya and Mikado Benneton. Suddenly come a stream of messages from Mt. Weather. According to these messages, which Studeman and the Marines believe to be authentic, U.S. forces have invaded Cuba; Soviet Forces in Europe have attacked Berlin; missiles fired from Cuba have destroyed the second wave U.S. invasion force assembled in Florida; the U.S. has retaliated by launching nuclear missiles against Soviet forces in Eastern Europe; an all-out nuclear exchange has begun and ended; Washington D.C. no longer exists. Los Angeles After the Cuban missile crisis has ended peaceably, the fugitive Russell Weyland goes to the home of Edwin Walker in Dallas to ask for help. He tells Walker that his accomplice Krueger, whom he knew only as Arthur Rudolph, was captured and murdered by the FBI, and had spoken admiringly of Walker as a great man and a personal friend who might help them. Walker tells Weyland where to hide, but then calls the FBI and turns him in, asking that this be treated as an anonymous tip. Back on Yelbatin Island, Levanthal takes Studeman aside and reveals that the civilization-ending war is a deception, a simulation designed to evaluate the Marines who must survive in the shelter, and that it will continue for a few weeks. Studeman is outraged and demands to be sent home. Levanthal reluctantly agrees. At home in Los Angeles, resting, Studeman and his assistant Angela Jean Butler are visited by the Dallas FBI agent who captured Russell Weyland on a tip from Edwin Walker. According to the agent, Weyland has told the FBI about his accomplice "Arthur Rudolph," murdered and buried apparently by agents of the FBI itself, and has also told of the child whom a Navy officer had claimed was his illegitimate grandson. He requested that Jonathan Studeman be contacted to assist in his defense. Weyland is being sent to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield Missouri for psychiatric evaluation. In Washington, President Kennedy has recalled Isaac Levanthal from Yelbatin and had him brought to the Oval Office for a meeting with the CIA Director, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, and the former Secretary of the Navy, John Connally, who is now Governor-elect of Texas. Kennedy and Connally were both unaware of the deceptive nature of COG exercises, until Kennedy got a cryptic telegram from Jonathan Studeman demanding an end such practices under threat of exposing "where your gold is deposited." Kennedy orders an end to the current exercise, and a promise to Studeman that it will never happen again. But the men agree that for safe-keeping in the event of any future crisis, the gold bullion will remain hidden at the secret shelter. Studeman and Angela visit Weyland and his lawyer, W. Graham Claytor, at the medical center. Weyland has apparently lost his mind, and can no longer remember anything. Asked to get a message to Isaac Levanthal, the Center's psychiatric director reveals that Levanthal has already returned, and is there now. Studeman confronts Levanthal, who admits that Mikado Benneton was secretly given to new parents and now lives with his adoptive mother. Levanthal warns Studeman to stay away from them. Studeman and Angela return to Los Angeles and visit the Communitarian Church of California in Marina del Rey, where pastor Hideo Shin now leads a church that he started for defectors from the Jones cult. The church caters to orphans and impoverished children. Hideo reveals that Isaac Levanthal helped him to learn of his past, even taking him and his mother, Kimiko Ohura, to Japan, where they learned that Alicia Benneton had been a daughter of missionaries and had witnessed the bombing of Hiroshima. She had seen American prisoners of war executed in the immediate aftermath of the bombing, and was herself severely beaten. Hideo's natural mother was the Korean "Comfort Woman," Shin Jung-hwa, and his natural father was believed to be an American soldier. Shin Jung-hwa died of cancer and her two children were sent to the orphanage from where they were adopted years later by the Bennetons. Angela asks Hideo about the visions his congregation members say he claims, and Hideo says it's true: his natural mother comes to him in dreams and warns of the impending end of civilization. Hideo and Kimiko inform Studeman that the Jones cult is moving to California, and ask him to help them get Kimiko's daughter, Maya, out of the clutches of that cult. Studeman is sympathetic and attracted to the beautiful Kimiko. He agrees to do what he can. After Studeman and Angela leave, Isaac Levanthal enters Hideo's office. He asks Kimiko to see Studeman as often as she can, to become friends with him, and to learn what he believes, or suspects. She wonders if they are in some kind of trouble. Levanthal says only that he and Hideo have great plans, and that Studeman is a dangerously independent man who might interfere with them. He is "an island, not a piece of the continent, not a part of the main."